Chris Dobney
A fire that burnt out more than 95 hectares between Casuarina and Cudgen on the weekend could have been deliberately lit, according to the Rural Fire Service (RFS).
The fire, which started on Friday morning near Depot Road about 2km west of Casuarina, burnt some 45 hectares of Cudgen Nature Reserve before being contained yesterday.
RFS spokesperson Ben Shepherd told Echonetdaily this morning, ‘in the absence of any obvious natural cause we are treating the fire as suspicious. It is marked for investigation, which is due to start.
‘There still might be some smoking on the inside but there is now a limited active fire and we’ve left a couple of crews patrolling the area,’ he said.
The site of the fire was adjacent to land earmarked for the Kings Forest housing development and contains vital habitat for the Tweed’s dwindling koala population and other threatened species.
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